Prose and polemics by ex Dunedin now Christchurch based recording artist Matt Middleton

Saturday, August 31, 2013

a band called life, crude, encounter group..empress august 3

Welcome to the new. The race track, the lifer. Its a bland and recalcitrant praecox, filial and bilial,
mordant to the core. In laymans terms we call it privacy.
Indebted as I am to Her Majesties prurient labial divide I still rake up the gumption to rake-in free-
trade lilliput dollar. Cumming-on-hair net-in-manilla-folder, I accelerate photons via Nokia's pre-
millenial wack-sack.
So munitions-r-us is the role-call aeternal because we walk on and left and right and whip up a
soporific syrupy lie-bake. In laymans terms I throw a pie in the microwave, charging up those water
molecules, laser laser trade-off cost-benefit teenager teenager. So isnt it time to talk sense? Is the cryptic style
overdone? Please, feel free to comment below, oh reader. Tell me to stop with the metaphor and
thrash realist, document it all like a journalist. Write it like they read it, plumb-line and the balance, like a finite arc, a masonic
brick-layer.
Teenage creativity.

Ah the solace of the net cafe.What ho! A Crude performance no less, first in a good while. Gradually refining the improv craft, pre-recorded rhythm, ad-lib theatre-sporting o'er top. Crude style : a base spat'n'rhyme , edgy verse, hooliganesque chorus. Tic expletive and holler. I performed first, little vignettes referencing issues ontological. Marvellous fun with a pitch shifter, voice-play, that creepy low pitch utilized by media to conceal a criminals identity, dialogue gleaned from Alien as the pedal emulates that priceless phaser effect Ash sputters forth post-decapitation. Patrick o'Brien of Mad Nanna fame arrives just as i put the set to bed and he requests an encore. Pat, a stalwart of the Melbourne avant garde music scene, is a man i respect, and I drone on. Audience engorges and imbibes. I disgorge and break windy.Then it's Encounter Group, the new group reconstituted from the remains of Lynton Denovans Satanic Rockers . Encounter Group is the brilliant continuation of Denovans magico-poetic career, a juggernaut you can pack into a matchbox, a easy to assemble unit brandishing the best in ultra portable equipment, pig nose amps , flange units and electric drum pads . What a din! Nasty buzz-fuzz metal riff tinker tanker backed up by Drummer Jeremy's Courbrough's deft electronical drum-drum, the drum provides a 'back-beat' which tends to centralize and propel the music as in a march or quickstep dance.. Kick / snare// kick /snare, drum 'kits' are the legacy of marching bands . The drummer keeps time and acts as a conducting mechanism. Lyntons vocal delivery is a joy to behold - listen close , each sentence is a clue. Stories are laid bare, people, places, wars, front-lines, psychedelic travelogues, everyday hypocrisies. At least, that's what I think they refer to. I am probably wrong. Guess ill see him at work on Monday. Encounter Group are one of the greats, amongst the throngs of kiwi artisans flooding into the city ov Melbourne, the great diaspora, we pay our share of tax to Canberra but too bloody bad if you need to draw down a little government welfare in times of redundancy...kiwis are notoriously hard workers, we do you guys a sterling service, but on the off chance we're in trouble, you can fuck off back to fuck-a-tane mate. New Zealanders are the only country who can't get centrelink assistance apparently. And don't get me started on that fucking leechlike system called Myki. Corrupt nepotistic meth slinging Freemason rape-a-holic racist sexist baby booming hypocrit slave trading inside trading bilderberging banker family worshipping right wing scapegoating ideologues mate.Then it's the main act....A Band Called Life, on a microtour promoting their new 7" release on Alberts Basement. Avant Garde is what I'd call it. Drowning in words and one track tape chatter with keyboard warble and one half of the duo actually skyping in his performance...these be troubleshooters. Get em a job Google. I wasn't sure if their performance was wholly or partially improvised. And those words! Check out the lyric sheet that comes with the beautiful 7" . Sardonic, but there's a faint gentleness there, a warmth. A tepid warmth but. Go get ye the disc!!!